Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Lightning Round With Donald Trump

Because it’s hard to contain the Vesuvial Donald Trump in 1,300 words of my column, we did a round of questions about his rivals and a few other boldface names in the news this week. Here are Trump’s rapid-fire impressions, delivered over the phone and over lunch at the restaurant in Trump Tower — the art of the meal with the birther of a nation.

On President Obama

Obama is going to like me very, very much because when he’s done with his term, he will be at my golf courses because I have the best golf courses in the world. He’s going to go off to greener pastures, I guess.”

Putin hates Obama. We don’t get along with anybody, every country hates Obama. They don’t like his attitude. They don’t like his style. They don’t like him, they don’t like that he’s not available.”

Photo

Carly Fiorina
Credit
Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

On Carly Fiorina

She’s a fine woman but it’s not gonna happen. She was viciously fired from Hewlett-Packard and the company still hasn’t recovered. The stock went down to nothing.”

A person who was very loyal to the president, which I respect. I’d love to run against him because it’s going to be an election based on competence and I’m really competent.”

On Hillary Rodham Clinton

Highly complex person who can’t help going over the edge. She just can’t stay true to herself. She has a real bad thing going with the emails. I’m not talking politically. That’s one thing and it’s going to be a disaster. But what she did was illegal. She could be having more fun. But this is no fun for her. The F.B.I. is checking everything.”

On why he invited Hillary to his wedding

I was a businessman, if I ever should need something.”

Photo

Jeb Bush
Credit
Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

On Jeb Bush

He’s a stiff. The guy can’t even talk. He has zero energy. You would fall asleep interviewing him.”

Jeb said this week that he listens to Paul Wolfowitz’s advice on foreign affairs, that he would not rule out the use of torture and that “taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal." On Jeb bizarrely cleaving to his brother on Iraq, Trump had this to say:

It’s so sad what a brotherly relationship will do to one’s mind. We were a hell of a lot better off with Saddam Hussein holding that crazy country together than we are now with it split up into ISIS and five other factions. If only we could have Saddam back, as bad as he was, rather than $2 trillion spent, thousands of lives lost and all these wounded warriors. Maybe his brother said, ‘Hey, listen, that’s my legacy. Don’t kill me.’ ”

Photo

Elizabeth Warren
Credit
Brian Snyder/Reuters

On Elizabeth Warren

She’s caught a little wave. Perhaps it’s her Indian upbringing.”

On Bill de Blasio

He’s having an awfully hard time being the mayor of New York and people are very upset. There is a lot of restlessness with crime, squeegees all of a sudden, and we are seeing things that we haven’t seen for a long time.”

Photo

Bernie Sanders
Credit
John G. Mabanglo/European Pressphoto Agency

On Bernie Sanders

And his confrontation with the “Black Lives Matter” activists

I thought it was a disgrace for him to let that microphone be ripped out of his mouth.”

On John Kerry

Iran is going to go down as one of the worst deals in history. Our chief negotiator goes into a bicycle race at 73, falls down and breaks his leg. These people are incompetent.” (Kerry is 71.)

Photo

Howard Schultz
Credit
Richard Perry/The New York Times

On Howard Schultz

He’s impressive on television. He’s done a great job. What’s he worth? It takes guts to run. He told me once that the Starbucks in Trump Tower made more money than any of the others.”

On Al Gore

It’s a tough path for him to get in the race right now. He won the election, the popular vote by 600,000, but he can never be president. There was that mix up in Palm Beach, a place I know very, very well, where people accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan has been really supportive of me.”

Photo

Scott Walker
Credit
Joshua Lott for The New York Times

On Scott Walker

He gave me a plaque and everything is nice. And I like him. And then about a week ago one of his guys came up and said that Donald Trump is full of it. I said ‘Thank you so much. Now I can hit him.’ I hit Scott so hard. I said his state was a disaster. So there’s a lot of power there. He went from Number 1 to Number 4 in Iowa. I went to Number 1.”

On Lindsey Graham

He has registered zero in the polls after a vicious attack on me and I think he’s a totally irrelevant person.”

Photo

Chris Christie
Credit
Zach Gibson/The New York Times

On Chris Christie

He’s a friend of mine but he missed his time. If he would have done it four years ago he would have beaten Romney and he could be president right now. But this is a different time.”

On Marco Rubio

Don’t know Rubio. Got to know him behind the lectern. Really nice guy. Highly thought of. Very young. But I have better hair than he does.”

Photo

Rand Paul
Credit
Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press

On Rand Paul

Tiny little guy. Did you see the press release I put out about Rand Paul? Pretty brutal, right? A nasty, nasty guy. I gave him a lot of money for his eye center. I played golf with him. I’m a good golfer. I’ve won 18 club championships. And he’s a golfer and I killed him. I could play him a thousand times and never lose to him.”

On George Pataki

He’s at zero. Who has zero? He doesn’t have one vote. He was a terrible governor who did a terrible job in New York state.”

On Mitt Romney

He was so disappointing to me. He choked, in sports they choke, can’t sink a three pointer to win the tournament. The great ones can, the bad ones can’t, that was an election that should have been won.”

Photo

Sarah Palin
Credit
Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

On Sarah Palin

A really fine woman, badly mistreated by the press. And she has been so supportive of me.”

On John Kasich

He’s been very nice to me. It’s hard for me to hit somebody who’s not hitting me.”

Photo

Ted Cruz
Credit
Joshua Lott for The New York Times

On Ted Cruz

He’s been terrific to me, so supportive.”

On Bobby Jindal

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, said the worst thing anyone can do is ask Trump a tough question, a mean question, because that’s when he performs best.”

Photo

Jim Gilmore
Credit
Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On Jim Gilmore

Him, I don’t know.”

On Sharon Stone

And her nude photo in Harper's Bazaar

She looked great. She’s always been nice to me.”

Photo

Ben Affleck
Credit
Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On Ben Affleck

And the hot topic of whether couples should hire attractive nannies

I’d say it was an extra level of risk.”

On the Police

I’m a huge fan of the police. But it’s amazing some of the things I’ve seen. What amazes me, why aren’t they shooting at the legs? It’s so bad for the police, for the image of the police. The choking incident with Eric Garner was terrible, I thought.”

On Twitter

The nice thing about Twitter, in the old days when I got attacked it would take me years to get even with somebody, now when I’m attacked I can do it instantaneously, and it has a lot of power. You see some genius statements on Twitter. You see some statements coming out which are Ernest Hemingway times two.”

On Climate Change

And Bill Maher's fear that Trump believes global warming is a Chinese hoax to destroy American manufacturing

Well I don’t actually think it’s a Chinese hoax but I’m not a believer in man-made climate change. And again I had uncles at M.I.T. and stuff. By the way many smart people agree with me.”

On Roger Stone

Ever since I fired him, he’s been on TV saying nice things about me. I should have fired him sooner.” (Stone says he quit.)

On Iraq

I was against that war from the beginning. That’s a big thing because that shows judgment.”

On Bill Clinton

Too thin. He used to be a friend of mine, now we can’t be friends.”

Correction: Aug. 15, 2015

An earlier version of this quote collection misspelled the name of the senator from South Carolina. He is Lindsey Graham, not Lindsay.